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Ever wondered what it takes to be a heavy metal journalist? In this comprehensive collection, Neil Daniels has interviewed a staggering 65 of the world's most successful writers of heavy metal and hard rock. Many of these writers are successful biographers, editors and long-standing freelancers who have interviewed some of the genre's leading artists from KISS to Metallica and Black Sabbath to Slayer. They've travelled the world over, lived in tour buses, got drunk with their idols, attended some of the greatest gigs in history and are still alive to tell the tale. It's all here; the wild stories, the anecdotes.. .and the advice! All Pens Blazing offers a potted history of the genre as well as the publishing industry from the legendary Sounds and Melody Maker to metal bibles Kerrang! and Metal Hammer to modern day magazines like Terrorizer, Powerplay and Classic Rock. There's also a wealth of information on fanzines and webzines as well as long-gone magazines like Metal Forces, RIP and RAW. With a foreword by the Canadian metal historian Martin Popoff, this collection makes essential reading for the heavy metal fan. It is also a worthy historical document for the serious enthusiast and can be used as a handy reference tool for the aspiring metal writer. NEIL DANIELS has written about classic rock and heavy metal for a wide range of magazines and fanzines. He has penned books on Judas Priest, Robert Plant, Linkin Park and Bon Jovi and co-authored Dawn Of The Metal Gods: My Life In Judas Priest & Heavy Metal with Al Atkins. More information is obtainable at www.neildaniels.com

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

If the whole point here was to make metal journalism look credible, why is this book littered with typos, inane questions and pointless answers?There are tons of insightful answers from the subjects interviewed, but reading a poorly written question followed by "I'm not sure" as an answer, repeatedly, is really boring.

Plus, the font is unbearably hard on the eyes.

Seriously, kudos to the author for trying, but doing a whole book of unedited e-mail interviews to try to make metal journalism look good just makes no sense.

Hey, I'm still glad he gave it a shot. Lots of fun/interesting stories here. It just could have been edited to get rid of the irrelevant/silly answers. We don't print those in magazines when we're trying to write a credible article, so they shouldn't be here either, as they take away from the reading experience in a huge way.

Perhaps a future edition can be edited and it'll be a kick-ass tome reminding the world (or, showing the world) that metal writing can be darn good writing.

I was very excited when this book was announced. As an aspiring rock/metal writer (translation: amateur hack), I was hoping to learn about the rules and tricks of the trade from those who do this kind of writing for a living. Instead, All Pens Blazing is a collection of interviews Neil Daniels conducted (via email, apparently) with rock and metal writers where the same dozen questions are lobbed over and over. Who are your influences? What do you think about the internet? What do you think about Kerrang these days? It quickly becomes tedious. I wanted to know more about how to better cover the music I love, not what the office politics were like at Metal Hammer back in the day. There isn't even any narrative from Daniels that might tie these interviews together or provide some analysis or context.

I usually go through a book or two a week, but I've been slogging through this one since Christmas. I'm determined to finish it, but I just can't handle more than a few pages at a time. Some of the answers are interesting or at least amusing, but mostly it's a boring read.

And then there's the format. Unlike most print-on-demand/self-published books I've encountered, this one is small - not much bigger than a paperback novel. And the print is absolutely miniscule. I have decent eyesight, but the text in this book was almost too tiny to read. Hopefully Daniels will correct that with future printings.

I'll give Daniels credit for the idea as well as for putting this together, but ultimately All Pens Blazing was a disappointment and definitely not the resource I was hoping for.

More About the Author

Based in the UK, Neil Daniels has written about rock, metal and pop culture for a wide range of magazines, fanzines and websites.

He has penned books on Judas Priest, Robert Plant, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi and Journey, and co-authored Dawn Of The Metal Gods: My Life In Judas Priest & Heavy Metal with original Judas Priest singer/co-founder Al Atkins. His third book on Judas Priest is Rock Landmarks: Judas Priest's British Steel.

His acclaimed series, All Pens Blazing: A Rock & Heavy Metal Writer's Handbook Volumes I & II, collects over a hundred original and exclusive interviews with some of the world's most famous rock and heavy metal scribes. His other duel collection, Rock 'N' Roll Mercenaries - Interviews With Rock Stars Volumes I & II, compiles over sixty interviews with many well-known rock stars and rock writers.

His books have so far been translated into Brazilian, Bulgarian, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Swedish with more foreign titles in the works.

2012 saw the publication of his books on Metallica, Iron Maiden and You Me At Six.

His reviews, articles and interviews on music and pop culture have been published in The Guardian, Classic Rock Presents AOR, Classic Rock Presents Let It Rock, Rock Sound, Record Collector, Big Cheese, Powerplay, Fireworks, MediaMagazine, Rocktopia.co.uk, Get Ready To Rock.com, Lucemfero.com, musicOMH.com, Ghostcultmag.com, Drowned In Sound.com, BBCNewsOnline.co.uk, Carling.com, Unbarred.co.uk and Planet Sound on Channel 4's now defunct Teletext service.

He has also written several sets of sleeve notes for Angel Air and BGO Records. He can be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Tumblr. He has author pages on both Amazon US and UK sites. Further details can also be found on Wikipedia.

His primary interests are music, films and books. He has a degree in Film Studies.